The Blue Stones - BLACK HOLES

Lost in the depths of the "to listen" folder, The Blue Stones rose again a little while ago when they released their latest single. It's not free, yes it's true. Still, this album is, and it's every bit as tasty as you'd like, a blend of blues-rock, indie-rock, hard-rock...

Just try it, it will probably make you fly, as it did me. Every bit helps those bands making more music. There's the beauty of it, all for you.

And of course, bon appétit!

Electric Octopus - Driving Under the Influence of Jams

This is another great release by Belfast-based trio Electric Octopus. On the menu : groovy jazzy smokey instrumentations, to-dance-to rhythms, and as ever, that particular atmosphere which enables one to close his eyes and believe he's enjoying the music in an obscure pub, sitted at a thick wooden table with a pint.

With nine tracks of an average of twenty minute each, which price you can name, I guess that's enough content for your money. Give a little something if you can, and help me get those guys go on a European tour.

Electric Octopus - Live on Oxford Island

Electric Octopus is one of the best bands I've discovered in 2016. It is so good I even bought a t-shirt with that exquisite purple cephalopod so everyone is like "nice t-shirt !" and I answer like "yeah it's Electric Octopus you know, a pretty cool band from northern Ireland you should totally listen to".

And then they do ! That's t-shirt magic for you...

Anyway, if you're into long musical jams between alchemists armed with instruments and electricity, you're going to love this album and all the music from Electric Octopus altogether.

See you again soon.

Electric Octopus - This is Our Culture

When I see a saturated picture of a purple octopus I feel compelled to hear what it has to say. And so when I saw this album's cover and the name Electric Octopus for the first time, I had a hunch and before listening, went and searched for a Bandcamp site, 'Maybe they even do free music', I thought.

And, coincidence or not, they do, and it's really good !

In a blurry and smokey atmosphere, the record begins by setting up the tempo, feeling the guitar, tuning the bass, progressively dimming the lights and diffusing the atmosphere of a friendly friday night jam session between friends.

These three guys from Belfast have a beautiful musical chemistry, translating itself in three bluesy, jazzy and rocky pieces for about three times twenty minutes, attuning themselves with one another in a perfect fashion.

And believe it or not, the next day, I met a guy from Belfast, here in Belgium.

See you after that.

The Dirty Feathers - Midnight Snakes

Here's an old one, an ancient gem from a time when life was something else.

I discovered The Dirty Feathers and bought their album at a time when it was free-priced. Later I started the Mojoteque project and wanted to share Midnight Snakes, but it was not free anymore. Brought down by the bad fortunes of life, I wistfully decided not to write anything about it... But I chanced upon it recently and there it is again free-priced !

So don't mind me but I will take this opportunity to share it with you.

In the year 2011, a band from Illinois decided to mix psychedelic, desertic and mineral influences to create a unique stylish blend which musn't be listened to on "shitty laptop speakers" as they say.

I will even go a bit further saying you never should listen to anything at all on laptop speakers unless you haven't got a say in the matter.

After this album, The Dirty Feathers released a single in 2012 that is also free-priced. Then, it's the desert, at least in the studio, because the band continues to play here and there, touring the small stages and small smokey bars mostly in the US, keeping a roots attitude that so many bands tend to lose when they get bigger.

Their catalog remained almost empty for several years, but who knows ?

Well, if you start following their Bandcamp page or La Mojoteque, you'll be the first to know when they lay a new album.

In the meantime, have a good one.

New Apple Taste - The Brand

It has to be said, bands from Canada do have a nice sense of rhythm. After X-Ray Zebras and The Stormalongs, New Apple Taste is the third canadian group I know that has graciously decided to get involved in the free music business.

Hailing from Montréal, these five musicians and two MCs (or emcees, as they like to say it) like to get down and play jazzy funky groovy rock instrumentals with screaming guitar solos, sax and his brass friends (and his problems with the law), drums getting crazy, in an overall atmosphere of pure musical affinity, which sometimes feels like a jam session recorded in a smokey back room in a bar somewhere, with sometimes rapped lyrics getting along.

Which by the way made me think a bit about the X-Ray Zebras, but just a bit.

Feels like a night at the stray cats' crib, with electricity and hip-hop added.

Fellwoods - Wulfram

This album's cover has been my desktop wallpaper for so long... But why the hell didn't I post it here in the first place ?

It is a wrong I'll try to right, today. I love the sound of this album, like a colony of ants where the ants are small but very talented rock bands. This quatuor from Portland, Oregon gives us their own particular blend of psych-rock with a touch of metallic scent and a hint of garage.

Enjoyably nervous, entirely filled with rock'n'roll, Wulfram takes its roots in a strange mystical universe where druids can shapeshift and speak to animals during blood moons, an atmosphere that reminds me of old-school metal albums from the 60's and 70's. Just add some flaming guitar licks and the voice of the lich king's cousin and there you have it.

I'll let you try yourself.

See you around.

The Stormalongs - Scherzophrenic

Remember The Stormalongs ?
I've talked about them before with the album They Call Me Destruction. Well here they are back again with another, still a bit short (and when it's good it's even shorter) but a well-crafted blend of crunchy garage-indie rock with a bluesy atmosphere that peeks out its head here and there.

Very good rock'n'roll release if you ask me. And free-priced above all. As I would advise with all the young bands that make free-priced releases, give a little something, even if it's not much, every little bit helps them making more music in the future and keeping it free of the fetters of big labels.

I'll leave you with them now, good listening.

The Stormalongs - ...they call me Destruction

Rock is dead, long live Rock !

The Stormalongs is a canadian band hailing from Toronto, who puts back the fiery fire in the flame of rock, a music that is here sometimes fast-paced, sometimes calmer, with obscure poetic lyrics that you don't always have to listen to or understand to feel the music. Vocals are, after all, an instrument among the others.

See what happens when you look for free rock music on the Internet ? And there's more... I can feel it.

Totem Provoc - Totem Provoc

When I discovered this album, I thought it was going to be some kind of unbearable french punk-rock, but it is fact a band hailing from Brazil that produces a blend of hard electro-rock with sometimes a little punkish aspect. The whole resembles a mix between PERTURBATOR and fast-paced hard rock that can be (gently) agressive sometimes.

There is very few info on their page, and their latest album was released back in 2013 but, well, you never know with music. The flame might just burn again sometimes. I'm keeping myself up to date and I'll keep you posted.

Until then, it's time to press play. See you !

Prog Sphere Promotions (VA) - Progstravaganza: Selections I

Avast you lovers of progressive rock, progressive metal, progressists, lovers of music that goes wild, of King Crimson, Riverside, Porcupine Tree, Tool and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Here is something to satiate your needs well and for long.

Prog Sphere Promotion is a label from Serbia and as you may as well have understood already, they specialise in all kinds of music containing the letters "prog" in their names, a musical style that is relatively obscure and hard to grasp, going as well with rock than with metal, infusing itself with influences from jazz-fusion. It is a music that lingers (lots of tracks of more than ten minutes), that stretches itself with long master solos (guitar, drums, organ, synth, bass...) lyrics ranging from melancholy to romantism on the verge of lyric poetry.

But it is also a music that is completely crazy, absolutely not neutral, as you may already understand listening to track 2 (my favourite). I'm saying this for the people using La Mojo to put some music during parties, this won't work with this compilation, unless all your friends are unconditional lovers of progressive music.

I'll leave you to your listening now, and let us hope that 2015 will be a really good year, that will see real change in the system, but that will give birth to a LOT of good free music, always as good and powerful as it was before. Strength and honor.

Morbo y Mambo - Morbo y Mambo

I posted this album a while back, it was one of the first on La Mojoteque. But I did not understand it fully at the time so I deleted it because I was a lord of the cakes. Now I have listened to it again and there is really a special sound to be found in there, something close to funk, rock, and psychedelic rock, with brass instruments, so there is a little bit of everything, all at once. On their site, Morbo y Mambo say that their music is "No Rock No Stoner No Dub No Afrofunk. Todo Junto"

Well I guess it is !

LAMBS - Blister

I really feel like going in the desert right now, with that kind of music in the background of my head. Great sound between old-school psychedelic vibes and classical rock music.

Soft.

The Baron

 I've discovered The Baron yesterday while looking for some good free hard rock. This one is not always rock hard but still manages to create a vibrant atmosphere with guitar solos, vocals that are not impossible to hear for once. I'm giving the three EP's from their website at once. Usually I do not do that, but since they are very short, I thought it was a way of sharing all of them efficiently.

I'm beginning to think that it may not be as hard as I thought to find good rock'n'roll in the free world. But compared to free electronic music, it is quite rare.

There you have it. Rock'n'roll, blues-rock, hard rock, progressive rock, a condensed of all this in these three, and they are completely free, you don't even have to ask yourself how much you'll give.

I'm going to search for more non-electronic free music, but I'm not promising anything because you never know...

Ruby the Hatchet - Ouroboros

Yesterday night was a harrowing journey for me myself and I, musically speaking. I'm telling you, finding good free blues music on the Internet is something of hell if you ever tried it. It is hard for your fingers, clicking and clicking again ; and for your ears, violated with an unborn sound that is already part of the undead, without being born, that's something. So, yes, I admit I'm giving up blues for La Mojoteque, for now. But who knows ? Maybe a good-willed visitor who knows his way around the unknown arcanes of blues will come and share some good names with me, which I'll share with you afterwards. Let us wait and see.

While this stranger makes his way to this place, I will continue with a very good stoner rock release, "Ouroboros" from Ruby the Hatchet, a band from Philadelphia. Their music is a good blend (ever noticed how I keep using the expression "a good blend" ?) of these two genres, sometimes more greasy stoner without going as far as the ultimate distortion of the universe ; and sometimes more rock, with a hint of psychedelitude of which I never tire.

If you're not really convinced by the first song, I'll let you know that this release gets better by the second. Very good indeed (I'm listening to it for the third time in a row).

This is the 50th article of La Mojoteque, not counting all those I have deleted before. I will not say I did not think I could go so far, because that was the goal from the beginning, but still, this is something. Almost 700 pageviews on the French version and not far from 1200 visitors on this one. I even started receiving spam comments providing effecient solutions for my erectile dysfunctions and with very interesting bank account offers too. This is beautiful, I want to thank all those who make free music, and to celebrate this event, they should all create a super-duper ultra giga release with twenty-five supranatural tracks, that is free, of course. That is not much to ask I think.

I wish you a good listening in the meantime, but not a happy new year, because as we all know, we're just living through a single enormous year containing variations in temperature.

Radar Men From The Moon - Echo Forever

During these hard times, when it is cold outside, when the sky is grey and when you've not seen the sun's glittery beard for what seems like years, I want you to know that you are not alone.

I have changed, for the zillionth time in my life, my musical tastes. In fact, it happens once a year, the cycle continues. I usually spend half the year listening to electronic music, chillout, psytrance, electro, anything, until everyone begins to think I am an electronic fascist, destroying all the friendly non-electro parties in the world to quench his horrible thirst for robotic repetitive rhythms and violent outbreaks of bass.

And when this belief is firmly rooted in all the brains touched by my grisly fingers, everything changes. Because then starts the other half of the year, when I want to go back to where I was before then, when I listened to music with instrumental sound, with humans singing, with monstrously distorted guitars and a vibrating sound that reminds me of old times.

And thus, La Mojoteque will embroided itself with more rock, reggae, instrumental music and folk. I cannot really guarantee it, because as I said before, finding good, very good non-electronic music on the web is way harder than the other way round. I still don't really know why. When I do, I'll let you know.

Until then, I'll let you enjoy this nice rock/stoner release I just found. If you like long guitaristic instrumentals with a hint of futuristic fragrance about it, you'll probably end up sated. Because sometimes it is the oldest sounding music that produces images of the farthest future. Bisoulord.